Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720 - 1940

Selected: CO. ANTRIM, BILLY, CHURCH (CI)

Name: UNKNOWN ARCHITECT
Building: CO. ANTRIM, BILLY, CHURCH (CI)
Date: 1815a
Nature: New church with tower. 'The church, a plain substantial building, was erected on the site of a former structure, by aid of a gift of £800 and a loan of £500, in 1815[consecration], from the late Board of First Fruits.'
Refs: S. Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837), I, 206; Clergy of Connor (Ulster Historical Foundation, 1993), 124; Claude Costegalde & Brian Walker, The Church of Ireland: an illustrated history (2013), 222(illus.).

Name: DREW, THOMAS (SIR)
Building: CO. ANTRIM, BILLY, CHURCH (CI)
Date: 1868
Nature: Church to have chancel 'in pursuance of a scheme which has been maturing for only twenty years...Here, as elsewhere, the ruthless hand of modern innovation is about to wage war among the six and twenty small parlours, into which the Church, as elsewhere, has been divided and parcelled out. Unappropriated sittings are of course out ot the question among a community, where an individual holds out for his “rights of a pew” as the north country farmer does; but the system ofopen benches at least mitigates an abuse, by which half-a-dozen individuals can jealoulymonopolize the accommodation for forty.’
Refs: Irish Churchman 1, no. 5, 20 Jun 1868, 66.

Name: UNKNOWN ARCHITECT
Building: CO. ANTRIM, BILLY, CHURCH (CI)
Date: 1890
Nature: Addition of chancel.
Refs: Claude Costegalde & Brian Walker, The Church of Ireland: an illustrated history (2013), 222.